The business behind the show

Cannes '08: Critics size up Soderbergh's 'Che'

May 22, 2008 | 2:17
am

It is not unusual for Cannes audiences to have the privilege of viewing directors' unfinished films and rough assemblies in the festival's official selections.

Wong Kar Wai's "Blueberry Nights" and Richard Kelly's "Southland Tales" both bounced from the South of France back into the edit bay. And for a director bored or overwhelmed by a mass of footage that doesn't seem to contain a natural dramatic or character arc, perhaps airing a test screening on a global stage can provide a motivational boost or a justification for an indefinite shelving.

Whatever the case, we can only hope the sprawling heap of Red ONE footage that "Che" director Steven Soderbergh allowed to be shown at Cannes last night is destined to be shaped into something magical someday. It's not like Soderbergh doesn't have the phone numbers of editors Stephen Mirrione ("Traffic") or Anne V. Coates ("Out of Sight," "Erin Brockovich"). It's more a matter of whether he chooses to use them.

In the meantime, a few critics have generously donated their "Che" observations for Soderbergh to consider:

Updated:

William Booth, Washington Post:Comrades, it is our duty to report: There were deserters.Traitors! Too weak to sustain the continued emotional investment
necessary to survive the long, tragic, long, doomed Bolivian campaign
of Benicio Del Toro in Part 2 of "Che." The most highly anticipated movie of the Cannes Film Festival took a heavy toll. The premiere got underway at 6:46 p.m. and ended at
11:25 p.m. Upon seeing on the screen the words "Day 328," a faint moan
could be heard in our section. But the struggle will continue. It must.
Soderbergh does not yet have an American buyer for his film.
Distribution or death!Todd McCarthy, Variety:No doubt it will be back to the drawings board for “Che,” Steven Soderbergh’s intricately ambitious, defiantly nondramatic four-hour, 18-minute presentation of scenes from the life of revolutionary icon Che Guevara.
If the director has gone out of his way to avoid the usual Hollywood
biopic conventions, he has also withheld any suggestion of why the
charismatic doctor, fighter, diplomat, diarist and intellectual
theorist became and remains such a legendary figure; if anything, Che
seems diminished by the way he’s portrayed here. ...
Neither half feels remotely like a satisfying stand-alone film, while
the whole offers far too many aggravations for its paltry rewards.

Allan Hunter, Screen Daily:"Che" exhibits a bracing confidence in the intelligence of the audience.
It makes no concessions to anyone unfamiliar with the events or period
it depicts. The five-hour running time (including an intermission) will
seem a daunting hill to climb for many. ... The lengthy, detailed depiction of the setbacks Che met in Bolivia
makes the second film more of an endurance test. Inevitably, the
incremental journey towards success in Film 1 is much more
enthralling than the slow unraveling of hope in Bolivia, especially
when much of the physical and visual detail of the guerrilla-style
jungle warfare, doubts and disappointments begin to feel very familiar
and repetitive.Glenn Kenny, IndieWire:"Che" benefits greatly from certain Soderberghian qualities that don't
always serve his other films well, e.g., detachment, formalism, and
intellectual curiosity. ... (What Soderbergh) gives us here is not exactly a hagiography, even as it acknowledges the
fact that 99.9 percent of the time covered in these movies, Che was the
coolest guy in the room. ... And Benicio del Toro,
despite being 10 real years older than anybody playing the part in any
period should be (and in fairness to him, let's note that this has been
a very LONG gestating process; the original plan had Terence Malick
directing with Soderbergh producing, and that was many years ago),
works almost demonically at making Che's appeal palpable. But his
performance is just a remarkable cog in Soderbergh's meticulous
examination of process. Both parts of the film are largely about
revolution as a job of work.Farah Nayeri, Bloomberg.com:Soderbergh's excessive focus on everyday guerrilla life
sometimes misses the big picture, even though this type of
warfare is by nature small-scale. In the film notes, the
director explains that he is "fascinated by the technical
challenges that go along with implementing any large-scale
political idea,'' and that his aim is to "detail the mental and
physical demands'' involved in the Cuban and Bolivian campaigns.Roger Friedman, Fox News:... in all those hours, no subplots
develop among the other characters. Not one of them is particularly
drawn out or filled in. At many points in the action –- many shootouts,
skirmishes, etc. — you can’t figure out who’s who, whom they’re
fighting, or why they’re against each other. No sympathies are built
for any of the characters. It’s literally a film in which there is no
one to root for. At this enormous length, that’s not good.